The specification relates to providing traffic situation awareness for a driver of an autonomous vehicle. The driver of an autonomous vehicle is a human user in a driver seat of the autonomous vehicle.
Vehicle control systems are becoming increasingly popular. One example of a vehicle control system is an Advanced Driver Assistance System (“ADAS system” if singular, “ADAS systems” if plural).
ADAS systems provide one or more autonomous features to the vehicles which include these ADAS systems. For example, an ADAS system may monitor the position of a vehicle relative to the lane in which the vehicle is traveling, and if the vehicle begins to swerve outside of that lane the ADAS system may take remedial action by repositioning the vehicle so that the vehicle stays in the lane or providing a notification to a driver of the vehicle so that the driver knows that they need to take action to remedy the situation.
Some vehicles include a sufficient number and quality of autonomous features that they are considered to be autonomous vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles cannot handle all traffic situations without their drivers intervening to assist them. There are also some traffic situations that have qualities such that drivers do not trust their autonomous vehicles to handle these traffic situations. Both of these are categories of traffic situations which require that drivers provide their attention to the roadway and intervene in the operation of their autonomous vehicles using their knowledge of the current traffic situation.